


Into to Surviving Sleep Deprivation

by mayoho



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Episode: s06e08 Intro to Recycled Cinema, Gen, Jeff and Abed both need more hugs, Jeff is madly insecure, Unrequited Annie Edison/Jeff Winger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 20:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3950566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayoho/pseuds/mayoho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The film's premiered and the Activities Committee goes there separate ways. Jeff contrives to not be alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into to Surviving Sleep Deprivation

As the group hug winds down to it’s natural conclusion, Jeff leaves his arm around Abed’s shoulders. He wants the human contact so badly that it feels like a physical ache and Abed is right there and not pulling away, so he can’t make himself let go. Abed drops his arm, but lists into Jeff’s side. He must not mind too much. The group stays, smiling and quoting silly lines at each other as the audience files out. They’re caught in limbo between exhaustion, success, failure, and a need to not be alone just yet. 

Elroy--as always--leaves first, then Britta when she realizes she was supposed to be at work hours ago, then Frankie because she at least pretends to have a life outside the Activities Committee, and then Craig since Greendale is still covered in a layer of heavy duty tinfoil and he has to at least supervise the cleanup effort. That leaves Jeff, Abed, and Annie clustered by the projector. Something tightens in Jeff’s chest--this happens when he thinks he might be alone with Annie. It’s something he desperately wants and is terrified to have and feels completely normal and natural when it happens without him having time to think about it before hand--when he doesn’t have time to think about how Annie is going to be a world famous detective or something while he continues to not teach people law and how he simultaneously wants to push her out into the world and force her to stay at Greendale with him forever. 

He’s trying to shift closer to Annie without being creepy or obvious about it when he realizes that he’s supporting an awful lot of Abed’s body weight. Abed makes a noise that is closer to a snore than anything else--it’s sickeningly adorable so Jeff frowns and tries to look at Abed without dislodging his head from Jeff’s shoulder. Annie giggles; it probably looks ridiculous.

“Abed’s been sleeping on you since before Elroy left. You didn’t notice?” Annie doesn’t bother to keep her voice hushed. 

“You think he’s ok? People don’t usually fall asleep standing up.”

“I don’t think he’s slept since Friday morning.” Annie says it like staying awake for fifty plus hours to make a shitty movie as not shitty as he can is a perfectly normal-for-Abed thing to do, something he will clearly recover from. It is, on both accounts, but it makes Jeff so painfully sad. Jeff would destroy everything he touched out of sheer uncontrollable frustration on that little sleep and Abed had talked him through a mental breakdown and tacked a new ending onto a film just to make Jeff feel better (and made time in the schedule for everyone but himself to take naps). Abed cares so much sometimes. 

“Both of you should get home before you’re too tired to drive,” Jeff says. It comes out weirdly teasing and he’s not sure why. 

He maneuvers Abed around to pick him up. Abed is much heavier than he looks (of course he is--going by looks, Abed’s bones should be hollow like a bird but Jeff’s seen him pull of some seriously hardcore parkour shit that had to take a lot of muscle strength) but also less than Jeff lifts at the gym, so it’s ultimately not a problem. Annie smiles at him as they make their way to her car, like she is in on the secret that he is a huge soft-hearted dork who loves and would do just about anything for his friends. She’s right, but Jeff will deny it to the death. 

It concerns Jeff that Abed sleeps through being inelegantly stuffed into Annie’s passenger seat--especially since Jeff is pretty sure he knocked Abed’s knees against every available surface--but Annie doesn’t seem worried; she half laughs, soft and mostly to herself, when Abed makes a weird sleepy noise. Jeff folds himself into the back seat without thinking about it. 

 

The drive to Annie and Abed’s apartment is quiet and short (Jeff is pretty sure he nods off for a bit anyway) and Abed wakes up enough while Annie is parking to get his own ridiculous, gangly limbs out of the car. He passes out against Jeff’s shoulder again while Annie is struggling to get the door to their building open (the lock sticks and one of the other residents must have decided that keeping the door propped open with a brick was a safety hazard) so Jeff carries Abed up the stairs and deposits him on his bed, pulling his shoes off like Jeff might do for a drunk person. 

Annie is standing next to him in Abed’s doorway. She looks too exhausted for him to ask for a ride back to Greendale where his car is still parked. Come to think of it he doesn’t have an excuse for being here at all; Annie would have been perfectly capable of waking Abed up and herding him into bed by herself. “I can sleep on the couch,” he says instead of any of that.

“That’s Britta’s bed, and she’ll be home in a few hours.”

“Oh.” Jeff looks at Annie. He is so tired his thoughts are running like molasses instead of whatever quick and speedy substance his thoughts usually run like. For a second, he wonders if Annie will offer to share her bed and his insides twist up at the thought (Jeff thinks it’s a good sort of twist, but he honestly can’t really tell at the moment), but she doesn’t. 

“You could share Abed’s bed.”

“He won’t mind?” 

Annie shrugs and makes a face that seems to indicate ‘Abed is very Abed about personal space, but I know more about that then you and think this is ok’. Obviously, that would have been too many words to actually say.

Jeff nods in assent and goes about taking off his shoes and belt (he undoes the laces--he has standards even when he’s this tired) and when he looks up again, Annie has left for her own bed, pulling the door shut behind her. He lays down on top of the covers and doesn’t remember falling asleep. 

 

Jeff slowly regains consciousness with the knowledge that something warm and human sized is wriggling next to, or, more accurately, half underneath him. The warmth wiggles a bit more and starts to slip away. Jeff’s half asleep brain makes a grab for it. He feels his fingers close around an arm; oh yes, he was sleeping in Abed’s bed, with Abed, and that is Abed’s arm. Jeff forces his eyes open. Abed is half sitting, half standing at the edge of the bed--face cast with shadow in the too early morning light--looking quizzically at Jeff’s hand. The more awake portion of Jeff’s brain knows he needs to let go, but instead he whispers “Stay”. 

“I need to use the bathroom,” Abed tugs his arm away gently, and Jeff makes himself let go. This is so mortifying he kind of wants to kill himself. He squeezes his eyes shut. If he falls asleep again before Abed get’s back, Jeff can pretend this didn’t happen. 

He’s not so lucky. He’s still awake when Abed returns--now dressed in his green flannel pyjamas--and crawls under the covers. He’s laying on his side (slightly curled in on himself) and Jeff can see his eyes reflecting the light peeking in from the gap in the curtains.

“You can use the covers.” 

Jeff startles, even though Abed’s voice is quiet and a bit hoarse with sleep. It would be really weird not to take advantage of the offer now that it’s been made, so he tugs his jeans off (they’re a bit too tight to actually be comfortable to sleep in) and slides back into the bed. He lays on his back, hoping the ceiling will provide enough distraction that he’ll be able to forget that Abed is staring at him. Abed shifts a few inches towards the center of the bed, pressing his forehead into Jeff’s arm. Jeff moves his fingers until they are just barely touching one of Abed’s hands. 

“Abed, do you ever worry that Greendale is like this thing that you can never escape from; that you’ll be here forever, like Leonard, and the world won't even be kind enough to let you die?”

The room is quiet for a very long time, long enough that Jeff is almost certain Abed has fallen asleep.

“I feel safe here,” Abed says, very quietly, in a not quite answer. Jeff lets out a sigh and closes his eyes. 

The next time he wakes up, it’s because Abed has accidentally elbowed him in the ribs while trying to turn off his alarm in a half asleep daze. Jeff forwards a pre-composed email to his classes informing them that class is cancelled and buries his face in the pillow. Abed smoothes a hand over Jeff’s sleep ruffled hair and gets out of bed. He twitches the curtains closed before leaving Jeff alone in the cocoon-like darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Does it count as a *thing* if two of the three pieces of Community fan fic that have gotten longer than 200 words involved Abed platonically sleeping with people? I'll go with probably.
> 
> Constructive Criticism (or comments in general) Welcome!


End file.
